Helen Thomas: If Cheney runs, I'll kill myself

'All we need is one more liar' in White House, says veteran reporter

Veteran reporter Helen Thomas, the “dean of the White House press corps,” says she would not be able to live if Vice President Cheney were to run for the highest office.

“The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I’ll kill myself,” she told The Hill newspaper. “All we need is one more liar.”

The Hill’s “Under the Dome” column noted that Cheney is a “serious darkhorse” candidate in 2008 according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.

Thomas, a syndicated columnist for Hearst Newspapers, has covered the White House since the Kennedy administration.

In a May column, she wrote that Cheney “certainly could campaign on the theme that he has had experience in running the White House.”

In the piece, Thomas said President Bush’s not being notified of a terror scare caused by an off-course light airplane “again raises the question of who’s running the show.”

She’s called Cheney “probably the most powerful vice president in recent times, perhaps in U.S. history.”

Thomas told the Hill she thinks Cheney would like to run, “but it would be a sad day for the country if he does.”

Last September, instead of criticizing Dan Rather over his use of unreliable documents about President Bush’s military record, Thomas targeted Bush himself.

“To me, the real issue is why doesn’t the president tell us the truth?” Thomas said at a university forum in New Jersey. “Why doesn’t he put out all the documents? Because he can’t, because there are too many gaps.”